I agree with everyone who mentioned our immediate future being like Orwell's "1984." We're almost there!
This is How The World Ends...
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Hey, people read my reply here.
What I meant about the implications were things like studies that say up one quarter of plant and animal species could go extinct by 2050 as a result of climate change that could be as much as three degrees Celsius on average world wide. That would be essentially a mass extinction, really (aside from what we do directly three deforestation, hunting and just being what we are which arguably currently puts us in a mass extinction period since we are very good at killing things).
But the same climatologists also tell about Earth's past, and our climate it turns out isn't all that stable. We're here mostly because we were blessed by an unusually stable and warm period starting at the end of the last Ice Age, that really allowed our species to flourish as it has. But over the last half a million years or so, the Earth's temperature has fluctuated by as much as 12 or 13 degrees Celsius according to climatologists from Ice Ages and warm periods coming and going. But it doesn't seem that each of these fluctuations causes a mass extinction.
Most of the changes have been for the colder, but I don't doubt that an Ice Age can be just as dramatic as warming.
Another is some of the run-away effects as a result of positive feedback from warming that could exacerbate the situation exponentially.
For example, many say that as the ice sheets melt, the Earth deflects less sunlight and the oceans warm, which causes more ice to melt, which causes more heat to be absorbed, hypothetically until there is no ice left. As the temperature rises the Permafrost that covers a substantial part of the Northern Hemisphere begins to melt, which releases Methane, a mean Greenhouse Gas (significantly worse than Carbon Dioxide). As Carbon Dioxide levels increase, the ocean absorbs more and this in turn begins to kill off sea-life (including those that produce Oxygen). And so on and so forth.
Now, that's more or less apocalypse. Humans would make it as a species, we're numerous, intelligent, and most importantly, manipulate our environment in order to survive (the cause of this in the first place). But a huge portion of the population would not, societies as a whole may not and worst case scenario the species would degenerate into pockets of agrarian societies sprinkled in the still habitable areas until the species could get back on it's feet.
But, my wonder is, why haven't the run-away effects happened before? The ice sheet point works both ways, during Ice Ages (the cause of which are still debated) significant percentages of the Earth are covered, depending on the age. How does the Earth ever recover? There are negative feedbacks that have mitigated and eventually ended these ages. The Earth has been well warmer in the past than it is now, why didn't the world just come to an end? Again, there have been other factors.
The bottom line from all I've read, is that we don't understand all the mechanisms of the Earth. It is immeasurably complex and we have such a short timeframe that we can accurately study, a few hundred years of first hand scientifically, several hundred thousand years from extrapolating information from ice cores, and more general information about further in the past through other means.
It's a messy issue, and I take everything with a grain of salt. I don't doubt that there is warming, and that we are likely the primary cause, and that it does us no good.
But with that said, I don't doubt for a second that the things we pump into the atmosphere are not doing us any good, and are likely changing our planet in ways we do not understand or perhaps even perceive yet. We don't understand how the planet works in the long term, and that makes what we're doing to the Earth all the more dangerous. We're mixing unknown solutions into a flask with our faces an inch away.
I hope that better explains on why I said I don't 100% believe all of the potential implications.
There are though immediate things that concern me, not apocalypse stuff, but the more simple things like the lack of glacial melt water to sustain rivers vital to irrigation, deforestation, relatively small sea level changes impacting fertile river deltas, and all the rest.
As a species I think we're in trouble if we don't get our act together, but nations will not sacrifice growth for the environment. The US got a lot of heat for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, but ultimately it is moot, since over half the Earth, encompassing the largest nations and most of the population, were exempt from any restrictions under the Protocol (China, India, Brazil, etc.). Solutions between the developed and developing world have to be established that will ultimately hurt the economies of these nations, but hopefully save our species from a grim future.
What I meant about the implications were things like studies that say up one quarter of plant and animal species could go extinct by 2050 as a result of climate change that could be as much as three degrees Celsius on average world wide. That would be essentially a mass extinction, really (aside from what we do directly three deforestation, hunting and just being what we are which arguably currently puts us in a mass extinction period since we are very good at killing things).
But the same climatologists also tell about Earth's past, and our climate it turns out isn't all that stable. We're here mostly because we were blessed by an unusually stable and warm period starting at the end of the last Ice Age, that really allowed our species to flourish as it has. But over the last half a million years or so, the Earth's temperature has fluctuated by as much as 12 or 13 degrees Celsius according to climatologists from Ice Ages and warm periods coming and going. But it doesn't seem that each of these fluctuations causes a mass extinction.
Most of the changes have been for the colder, but I don't doubt that an Ice Age can be just as dramatic as warming.
Another is some of the run-away effects as a result of positive feedback from warming that could exacerbate the situation exponentially.
For example, many say that as the ice sheets melt, the Earth deflects less sunlight and the oceans warm, which causes more ice to melt, which causes more heat to be absorbed, hypothetically until there is no ice left. As the temperature rises the Permafrost that covers a substantial part of the Northern Hemisphere begins to melt, which releases Methane, a mean Greenhouse Gas (significantly worse than Carbon Dioxide). As Carbon Dioxide levels increase, the ocean absorbs more and this in turn begins to kill off sea-life (including those that produce Oxygen). And so on and so forth.
Now, that's more or less apocalypse. Humans would make it as a species, we're numerous, intelligent, and most importantly, manipulate our environment in order to survive (the cause of this in the first place). But a huge portion of the population would not, societies as a whole may not and worst case scenario the species would degenerate into pockets of agrarian societies sprinkled in the still habitable areas until the species could get back on it's feet.
But, my wonder is, why haven't the run-away effects happened before? The ice sheet point works both ways, during Ice Ages (the cause of which are still debated) significant percentages of the Earth are covered, depending on the age. How does the Earth ever recover? There are negative feedbacks that have mitigated and eventually ended these ages. The Earth has been well warmer in the past than it is now, why didn't the world just come to an end? Again, there have been other factors.
The bottom line from all I've read, is that we don't understand all the mechanisms of the Earth. It is immeasurably complex and we have such a short timeframe that we can accurately study, a few hundred years of first hand scientifically, several hundred thousand years from extrapolating information from ice cores, and more general information about further in the past through other means.
It's a messy issue, and I take everything with a grain of salt. I don't doubt that there is warming, and that we are likely the primary cause, and that it does us no good.
But with that said, I don't doubt for a second that the things we pump into the atmosphere are not doing us any good, and are likely changing our planet in ways we do not understand or perhaps even perceive yet. We don't understand how the planet works in the long term, and that makes what we're doing to the Earth all the more dangerous. We're mixing unknown solutions into a flask with our faces an inch away.
I hope that better explains on why I said I don't 100% believe all of the potential implications.
There are though immediate things that concern me, not apocalypse stuff, but the more simple things like the lack of glacial melt water to sustain rivers vital to irrigation, deforestation, relatively small sea level changes impacting fertile river deltas, and all the rest.
As a species I think we're in trouble if we don't get our act together, but nations will not sacrifice growth for the environment. The US got a lot of heat for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, but ultimately it is moot, since over half the Earth, encompassing the largest nations and most of the population, were exempt from any restrictions under the Protocol (China, India, Brazil, etc.). Solutions between the developed and developing world have to be established that will ultimately hurt the economies of these nations, but hopefully save our species from a grim future.
But good for the individual, good for the country and good for humanity are often very different things; there's very little that's Good through and through.The Negotiator said:
Yes, because whilst the NF etc. had some vile habits, they were also defensive of their area, rightly condemned and matched by a group that kept them in check.Cheese Pavillion said:
Chavs, on the other hand, have the same habits, will destroy their own area, are held up as models and have no group capable of holding them in check.
...Putting innocents in jail has been going on since Roman times based on bad intel.
Defying the Geneva Convention is still defying the Genevea Convention, the hunger strikers were almost forced to eat for their own health.
I hadn't got to that because I was in bed sleeping. I'll pop over shortly(!) and see what else there was.
But really, comparing the abuse of prisoners to the humane protection of people trying to suicide is really a strretch.
You know, although basically everything I said in that last post was information I've read or seen, the economic part was purely an inference because I remember that the US didn't want to ratify it explicitly because China, an emerging rival of the US, was exempt from any restrictions. There was talk of it putting economic strain on some industries and so on, but I'm not aware of cost/benefits though that many industries would face in light of them.
What I am reasonably sure of though is that most companies do what's cheapest. We use oil and coal not because they're fun or we like to burn the remains of long dead organisms out of spite, we use them because they're cheap and plentiful. What's holding industries back from making themselves cleaner is probably the initial investment. It may be more efficient and money saving in the end, but like person refusing to get storm windows or replace their old refrigerator, it's the initial cost that puts them off. The government surely could solve that with aggressive subsidies (and mean penalties) and they probably do a bit of it already, but it's just not enough.
But anyway, the reason I say the US's following Kyoto or not though is because of the scale of the problem. China is putting roughly one new coal power plant up a week. These plants aren't cheap and meant to last a few years, they're going up stay up and do their jobs for a long time. An interesting thing I read as writing this, within the next 25 years it's likely that China's increase emissions so much as to cancel out all of the goals of the Kyoto Protocol several times over. Literally if the United States stopped using coal, altogether, tomorrow, it's projected that within 25 years China would make up the difference, and with China's growth and population, you can expect it to far exceed the US's emissions as time goes on.
China isn't the only industrializing nation though using more and more fossil fuels. It's just going to be the biggest.
Any agreement without China and India is too short-sighted to have any real impact beyond a moral one. The damage that has been done and is being done is significant, but at the rate things are going the future has much, much more in store.
With that said, I do think it's far more practical for the US to change it's policies than China. The US's energy infrastructure is aging and that presents room for improvements, and the US isn't in desperate need of energy as China is. You can't expect China to tear down it's brand new coal plants, but since the US is in a position to start going for cleaner means of productions or clean means altogether, it certainly should.
Sadly though, it won't make that much of a difference. The changes we see in the environment now were caused by a fraction of what we will be producing in the future, and that's where we should be focused. If the industrialized world got together and played hardball, got the US to play, set goals for themselves, goals for the world, and tariff/trade penalties (not insignificant ones, ones meant to be very, very painful) then I think things could be turned around.
That isn't light stuff, big tariffs (or even embargos) are just a hop away from open conflict, it is serious business. But it would mean the world is taking things seriously, taking the future seriously. But for now the only thing the world does is talk and make insignificant progress that is easily undone and buried by the much larger nations.
An interesting picture I stumbled across while writing
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/10/business/coalgraphic.gif
Also, thank you for the compliment.
What I am reasonably sure of though is that most companies do what's cheapest. We use oil and coal not because they're fun or we like to burn the remains of long dead organisms out of spite, we use them because they're cheap and plentiful. What's holding industries back from making themselves cleaner is probably the initial investment. It may be more efficient and money saving in the end, but like person refusing to get storm windows or replace their old refrigerator, it's the initial cost that puts them off. The government surely could solve that with aggressive subsidies (and mean penalties) and they probably do a bit of it already, but it's just not enough.
But anyway, the reason I say the US's following Kyoto or not though is because of the scale of the problem. China is putting roughly one new coal power plant up a week. These plants aren't cheap and meant to last a few years, they're going up stay up and do their jobs for a long time. An interesting thing I read as writing this, within the next 25 years it's likely that China's increase emissions so much as to cancel out all of the goals of the Kyoto Protocol several times over. Literally if the United States stopped using coal, altogether, tomorrow, it's projected that within 25 years China would make up the difference, and with China's growth and population, you can expect it to far exceed the US's emissions as time goes on.
China isn't the only industrializing nation though using more and more fossil fuels. It's just going to be the biggest.
Any agreement without China and India is too short-sighted to have any real impact beyond a moral one. The damage that has been done and is being done is significant, but at the rate things are going the future has much, much more in store.
With that said, I do think it's far more practical for the US to change it's policies than China. The US's energy infrastructure is aging and that presents room for improvements, and the US isn't in desperate need of energy as China is. You can't expect China to tear down it's brand new coal plants, but since the US is in a position to start going for cleaner means of productions or clean means altogether, it certainly should.
Sadly though, it won't make that much of a difference. The changes we see in the environment now were caused by a fraction of what we will be producing in the future, and that's where we should be focused. If the industrialized world got together and played hardball, got the US to play, set goals for themselves, goals for the world, and tariff/trade penalties (not insignificant ones, ones meant to be very, very painful) then I think things could be turned around.
That isn't light stuff, big tariffs (or even embargos) are just a hop away from open conflict, it is serious business. But it would mean the world is taking things seriously, taking the future seriously. But for now the only thing the world does is talk and make insignificant progress that is easily undone and buried by the much larger nations.
An interesting picture I stumbled across while writing
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/10/business/coalgraphic.gif
Also, thank you for the compliment.
Here's something interesting for those considering the dissolution (downfall? IMHO, something has to be up in the first place to have a down) of the US and how it would "end the world" as we know it presently on the enviromental side of things:
Mars polar ice caps are melting too.
Is human pollution causing that? I know, silly question. I am pretty sure we are all intelligent enough to see the common thread between to separate planets orbiting the ... sun. Oh yeah, that thing, does that thing put out at constant levels or would things like solar storms (we see it as large Aurora Borealis aka Northern Lights ... actually, is the stuff bouncing off the earth's magnetic field seen in the southern hemisphere as well?) say otherwise?
IMHO, pollution affects us greatly locally, has even lead to the downfall of societies (lead pipes anyone?) but it is never going to effect us on a global scale quite so much as a change in out put from the sun, which would affect other planets, right? Oh well, its just another theory as far as I know, just throwing it out there for my fellow posters to consider. Human's may not be the deciding factor in climate change after all but it doesn't mean we should continue to take a crap where we eat.
Mars polar ice caps are melting too.
Is human pollution causing that? I know, silly question. I am pretty sure we are all intelligent enough to see the common thread between to separate planets orbiting the ... sun. Oh yeah, that thing, does that thing put out at constant levels or would things like solar storms (we see it as large Aurora Borealis aka Northern Lights ... actually, is the stuff bouncing off the earth's magnetic field seen in the southern hemisphere as well?) say otherwise?
IMHO, pollution affects us greatly locally, has even lead to the downfall of societies (lead pipes anyone?) but it is never going to effect us on a global scale quite so much as a change in out put from the sun, which would affect other planets, right? Oh well, its just another theory as far as I know, just throwing it out there for my fellow posters to consider. Human's may not be the deciding factor in climate change after all but it doesn't mean we should continue to take a crap where we eat.
Not in context Cheese. Imprisonment without justice has been going on since gaol's were first built. Fear of Terrorism is just the new name for it. If you're going along that route, Jesus was possibly the first political prisoner.
I've lost your point completely now. Danger = Threat, surely?
I registered just for this thread, not that I do not lurk, because I do. But regardless whether this is mostly for humor or for actual testing of the subject at hand within the Brownian motion of random text typed up by random people on the internet, I've had a lot of thoughts on this subject lately, and perhaps as I become more a "Mister" than a "Dude" in the eyes of the world around me, my thoughts on these matters may be spiraling inwards and becoming either quite paranoid or severely and depressingly accurate.
While we look at the situation America, and of course, the world at large, by proxy, is in. It is somewhat easy to apply the programming indoctrinated in us as children of the Cold War Era(For those of us that were actually....yanno, alive while the Cold War was still going on), and largely the PNAC(Project for the New American Century) wing of conservative "politics" has progressed rather obviously down the Societal Indoctrination Checklist for Global Domination, I find my eye drawn to something else thats been added to the mix as of late.
Perchance I'm insane, but hello, we're on the internet and everyone is insane, haven't you seen that video with the girls and the cup? But I am beginning to believe you can easily observe the direction of those who feel they should control the way the world is going by simply watching the news and various documentary channels.
Now, while watching, tune out most of the talking head chatter, and just focus on the keywords coming up in the programming.
Race
Murder
War
Shortages
Politics
Drought
Disaster
Race
Disaster
War
Murder
Politics
Depression
Scandal
Murder
Disaster
Politics
Scandal
Race
Now I take all the major news websites on the internet, and parse the front page text for all of them looking for the top hits in word use in common.
And what we get is what I'm hearing between the lines on television.
Race....War....Politics.
And theres your coded message.
To extrapolate, I believe theres a new chapter being programmed into us via the media we're exposed to, to prepare us for this addition to the path of destruction we are already on.
Let me go ahead and state that I am not a racist, I do follow politics, sort of like an alien observer, or that smart kid at the puppet show that keep pointing out the strings. I'm simply pointing out that we're being programmed for reactivity to the assassination of B**** O**** after his election to President of the United States of America.
So in the current situation, with petrochemical fuel shortages, water shortages, energy shortages, a fiscal economy on the brink of the next great depression, the military stretched beyond its capabilities and under supplied and out of position to do anything to protect the country it hails from.
What I believe we will see is an assassination of B**** O****, not that I would wish this to happen because I do not, I find the man to be incredibly inspirational and even a jaded old bastard like me wants to believe in him, this will trigger major racial tensions in the United States, possibly between African Americans and Mexican Americans (since the border issue is being extensively downloaded into our brains as well) throwing the United States into a state of gang driven undeclared civil war. In due time Mexico and some South American countries will become involved in some fashion, eventually embroiling the US in a war on our southern border under the pretense of security but to really take control of the vast natural resources left intact in South America.
In the process of all this America will essentially be broke and trading on the credit of a police state industry, huge chunks of the population will be contained in labor mills to drive the industry of manufacture to pursue an agenda focused on gaining control of the rest of the natural resources in the Western Hemisphere.
Yeah this is pretty stretched out here, I'm sure many people will tell me to find my medication. But its just what I've been seeing in my head when I ponder the programming we're being fed and watching the state of the world as it is today.
I don't think the world will end, the end of the world isn't in the best interests of those in the business of building their fortunes on the backs of those of us that live in it. The world won't end, it will just descend into an Orwellian hell that not even Hollywood could do
justice.
Edited: To censor the name of a presidential hopeful so I don't end up popping up on Echelon and having a couple serious men in dark suits knocking on my door.
While we look at the situation America, and of course, the world at large, by proxy, is in. It is somewhat easy to apply the programming indoctrinated in us as children of the Cold War Era(For those of us that were actually....yanno, alive while the Cold War was still going on), and largely the PNAC(Project for the New American Century) wing of conservative "politics" has progressed rather obviously down the Societal Indoctrination Checklist for Global Domination, I find my eye drawn to something else thats been added to the mix as of late.
Perchance I'm insane, but hello, we're on the internet and everyone is insane, haven't you seen that video with the girls and the cup? But I am beginning to believe you can easily observe the direction of those who feel they should control the way the world is going by simply watching the news and various documentary channels.
Now, while watching, tune out most of the talking head chatter, and just focus on the keywords coming up in the programming.
Race
Murder
War
Shortages
Politics
Drought
Disaster
Race
Disaster
War
Murder
Politics
Depression
Scandal
Murder
Disaster
Politics
Scandal
Race
Now I take all the major news websites on the internet, and parse the front page text for all of them looking for the top hits in word use in common.
And what we get is what I'm hearing between the lines on television.
Race....War....Politics.
And theres your coded message.
To extrapolate, I believe theres a new chapter being programmed into us via the media we're exposed to, to prepare us for this addition to the path of destruction we are already on.
Let me go ahead and state that I am not a racist, I do follow politics, sort of like an alien observer, or that smart kid at the puppet show that keep pointing out the strings. I'm simply pointing out that we're being programmed for reactivity to the assassination of B**** O**** after his election to President of the United States of America.
So in the current situation, with petrochemical fuel shortages, water shortages, energy shortages, a fiscal economy on the brink of the next great depression, the military stretched beyond its capabilities and under supplied and out of position to do anything to protect the country it hails from.
What I believe we will see is an assassination of B**** O****, not that I would wish this to happen because I do not, I find the man to be incredibly inspirational and even a jaded old bastard like me wants to believe in him, this will trigger major racial tensions in the United States, possibly between African Americans and Mexican Americans (since the border issue is being extensively downloaded into our brains as well) throwing the United States into a state of gang driven undeclared civil war. In due time Mexico and some South American countries will become involved in some fashion, eventually embroiling the US in a war on our southern border under the pretense of security but to really take control of the vast natural resources left intact in South America.
In the process of all this America will essentially be broke and trading on the credit of a police state industry, huge chunks of the population will be contained in labor mills to drive the industry of manufacture to pursue an agenda focused on gaining control of the rest of the natural resources in the Western Hemisphere.
Yeah this is pretty stretched out here, I'm sure many people will tell me to find my medication. But its just what I've been seeing in my head when I ponder the programming we're being fed and watching the state of the world as it is today.
I don't think the world will end, the end of the world isn't in the best interests of those in the business of building their fortunes on the backs of those of us that live in it. The world won't end, it will just descend into an Orwellian hell that not even Hollywood could do
justice.
Edited: To censor the name of a presidential hopeful so I don't end up popping up on Echelon and having a couple serious men in dark suits knocking on my door.
Moving to Canada next year once I graduate, so hopefully this stuff won't apply to me that much. Then again...
If it's true what analysts say (and at this point, I'm not so sure), then America is in the proverbial shitter. Our economy is so wack that if our next president can even get a penny in surplus, my mind will commit seppeku. The big business and oil companies will milk America till it's gone, at which point they will focus on other countries and leave America to crumble down to pieces. Unfortunately, the USA has become such a consuming country that we may take out a point of economy of other countries. At this point, Canada isn't looking so perfect.
I believe that the world will face economic ruin, and that governments will start shooting at each other just for whatever resource is viable. Eventually, we'll probably glass each other off the planet, with nary a sign we were ever there except inhospitable land.
If it's true what analysts say (and at this point, I'm not so sure), then America is in the proverbial shitter. Our economy is so wack that if our next president can even get a penny in surplus, my mind will commit seppeku. The big business and oil companies will milk America till it's gone, at which point they will focus on other countries and leave America to crumble down to pieces. Unfortunately, the USA has become such a consuming country that we may take out a point of economy of other countries. At this point, Canada isn't looking so perfect.
I believe that the world will face economic ruin, and that governments will start shooting at each other just for whatever resource is viable. Eventually, we'll probably glass each other off the planet, with nary a sign we were ever there except inhospitable land.
Wow! Homo-phobia is still alive somewhere? Next thing this person will say is that national acceptance of blacks will be the instant destruction of all life as we know it.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Heads up, leave the underside of the rock... homosexuality is pretty well accepted these days.
Now, to answer the original question:
I would have to somewhat agree with a few of the above posters in that I see America slowly giving more and more control to the Powers that Be while simultaneously hating the government more and more. Eventually, I think that enough of our population will rebel, at first in singles, or mob-esq events like shoot outs with 'criminals' who just didn't want to give up their constitutional rights like 'to bear arms' and riots in the larger cities. Eventually, after some pretty horrific 'quelling' that involves the military taking control over those cities (after a sizable body count), small rebel groups will form to do small things to poke sticks at the governmental bear. Eventually, either the government will realize that something needs to change and some brave leader will do so, the people will eventually get to the point of rebellion that total chaos reigns and everything screeches to a halt, or the small rebel factions will turn into something we accept on a regular basis that the government tries to use propaganda to turn into a reason we should all be afraid and so give even more power to them as our 'protectors'.
The only way to stop this is to help me obtain the position of Emperor of the United States.
lol no, seriously.. I am considering moving to Canada...